PlayStation Productions to Adapt Sony's Games for Film and TV

"We looked at what Marvel has done in taking the world of comic books and making it into the biggest thing in the film world,"

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced the launch of PlayStation Productions, a production studio that will take Sony's catalog of video game titles and franchises and adapt them for film and television.

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, this new enterprise will be led by Asad Qizilbash and overseen by the chairman of Worldwide Studios at SIE, Shawn Layden, and is "already in production on its first slate of projects and has set up shop on the Sony Studios lot in Culver City."

"We’ve got 25 years of game development experience and that’s created 25 years of great games, franchises and stories," Layden tells The Hollywood Reporter. "We feel that now is a good time to look at other media opportunities across streaming or film or television to give our worlds life in another spectrum."

From The Last of Us to God of War to Metal Gear Solid to Spyro the Dragon, PlayStation has been home to many different stories across many different worlds. Sony believes that 'with a library of more than 100 original properties ranging from adventure to sci-fi to action to mystery to horror, PlayStation Productions has a wide breadth of content ripe for adaptation."

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Unlike most video game adaptations that are usually a game studio licensing out its IP, Sony will be producing these projects in-house with PlayStation Productions and sister company Sony Studios will help with distribution.

"Instead of licensing our IP out to studios, we felt the better approach was for us to develop and produce for ourselves," says Qizilbash. "One, because we’re more familiar, but also because we know what the PlayStation community loves."

Qizilbash, Layden, and the team have been working on this new venture behind-the-scenes for the past couple years. They have been talking to many in the film industry including Transofrmers series producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige.

"We looked at what Marvel has done in taking the world of comic books and making it into the biggest thing in the film world," says Layden. "It would be a lofty goal to say we’re following in their footsteps, but certainly we’re taking inspiration from that."

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Layden also notes the changing Hollywood landscape and how, as opposed to 20 years ago, selling a video game adaptation is much easier as many more filmmakers are now gamers themselves.

"You can see just by watching older video game adaptations that the screenwriter or director didn’t understand that world or the gaming thing," Layden says. "The real challenge is, how do you take 80 hours of gameplay and make it into a movie? The answer is, you don’t. What you do is you take that ethos you write from there specifically for the film audience. You don’t try to retell the game in a movie."

Another goal of PlayStation Productions is to also help with the wait for game sequels as, in between development of one title to another, fans will be able to revisit their favorite worlds and "have more of that experience and see the characters they love evolve in different ways."

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This will also afford PlayStation the right to retain creative control of its titles and ensure the right people are chosen for the right projects. Additionally, it will help ensure these projects are not rushed and the new studio is able to to "grow this in a measured, thoughtful way."

"We don’t have to rush to market. We don’t have a list of ‘X number of titles must be done in this year.’ None of that," says Layden. "The company has been very accommodating to our ambition around this, to grow this in a measured, thoughtful way. This is a passion project for me, to be the first gaming entity to do something lasting and meaningful in a completely different medium is something I’d like to see us achieve here at PlayStation Productions."